Psalms 109:21-31

21 And thou, Lord God, do with me for thy name; for thy mercy is sweet. Deliver thou me, (But thou, Lord God, do with me for the sake of thy name; for thy love is good. Save thou me,)

22 for I am needy and poor; and mine heart is troubled within me. (for I am poor and needy; and my heart is troubled within me.)

23 I am taken away as a shadow, when it boweth away; and I am shaken away as locusts. (I fade away like a shadow in the evening; and I am shaken off like a bug.)

24 My knees be made feeble with fasting; and my flesh was changed for oil. (My knees be made weak with fasting; and my flesh wasteth away for lack of oil.)

25 And I am made (a) shame to them; they saw me, and moved their heads (they saw me, and shook their heads).

26 My Lord God, help thou me; make thou me safe by thy mercy. (My Lord God, help thou me; save thou me in thy mercy/save thou me because of thy love.)

27 And they shall know, that this is thine hand; and (that) thou, Lord, hast done it.

28 And they shall curse, and thou shalt bless, they that rise against me, be shamed; but thy servant shall be glad. (And they shall curse, but thou shalt bless, so let those who rise against me, be put to shame; but thy servant shall be glad.)

29 They that backbite me, be clothed with shame; and be they covered with their shame, as with a double cloth. (Let those who backbite me, be clothed with shame; yea, let them be covered with their shame, like with a cloak.)

30 I shall acknowledge to the Lord greatly with my mouth; and I shall praise him in the middle of many men. (With my mouth I shall greatly thank the Lord; yea, I shall praise him in the midst of many people.)

31 Which stood nigh on the right half of a poor man; to make safe my soul from pursuers. (For he standeth close to the right hand of the poor; to save them from their pursuers, or their persecutors.)

Psalms 109:21-31 Meaning and Commentary

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. This psalm was written by David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, concerning Judas the betrayer of Christ, as is certain from Acts 1:16 hence it is used to be called by the ancients the Iscariotic psalm. Whether the occasion of it was the rebellion of Absalom, as some, or the persecution of Saul, as Kimchi; and whoever David might have in view particularly, whether Ahithophel, or Doeg the Edomite, as is most likely; yet it is evident that the Holy Ghost foresaw the sin of Judas, and prophesies of that, and of the ruin and misery that should come upon him; for the imprecations in this psalm are no other than predictions of future events, and so are not to be drawn into an example by men; nor do they breathe out anything contrary to the spirit of Christianity, but are proofs of it, since what is here predicted has been exactly accomplished. The title in the Syriac version is, "a psalm of David when they created Absalom king without his knowledge, and for this cause he was slain; but to us it expounds the sufferings of the Christ of God;" and indeed he is the person that is all along speaking in this psalm.